The following is quoted from Tom's Hardware:
"The delicate issue about this bug, provided to Microsoft partners under confidentiality guidelines as Knowledge Base article KB899179, is the fact that it has been known to be a "problem" at least since 12 July 2005. It is unclear at this time why Microsoft has not issued a patch or an advisory the public to fix or explain this bug. So far, Microsoft has not responded to our inquiries and we are still waiting for a comment on this power drain issue.".

This was in relation to significant loss of battery life on dual-core notebook PCs when a USB device was plugged in.

Maybe there aren't secret KB articles by MS, but if there are, I don't think there should be.
For those who might trot out the auto industry as an example of similar behaviour, I don't think it applies. New cars are only obtainable at dealers and I understand that defect advisories are also available to subscribers and interested parties. In the case of MS, if this is true, they limit the "interested parties" and possibly even hide them from "regular" subscribers".